Saturday night's World Poker Tour slugfest at the Beau Rivage was one of those alternate-universe final tables where the laws of poker strategy seem not to apply.

Indeed, were it not for a fortuitous suck-out predicated on a miracle turn card, the WPT's Southern Poker Championship final table might have gone down in history as the fishiest TV performance since Shark Week. It was crazy in Biloxi last night, folks.

We already talked about how the roster for the final table of this $10,000 WPT event was something of a letdown, given that it distilled the 283-player-strong field of big-name pros down into six finalists the most recognizable of whom was three-time WSOP bracelet-winner Hilbert Shirey. We never expected the kind of carnage that transpired in the Beau's Magnolia Ballroom on Saturday.

The final table got under way a little after 4 p.m. with Iranian-American businessman Soheil Shamseddin the prohibitive chip leader. Obviously a fairly successful entrepreneur, Shamseddin was clearly an action junkie, wasting little time in mixing it up and calling all-ins with less than premium hands like T♣ 7♠, T♦ 8♦ (post-flop on a K♠ 7♣ 3♠ board) and then Hollywooding the living ish out of a pocket pair of kings before moving all-in on Hilbert Shirey with absolutely zero fold equity.

The gambler.

Shamseddin's crazed antics seemed contagious. You might think he loosened up the table, but that's not exactly right. It was more like he flipped logic on its ear.

For example, after watching his maniacal rival play pot after pot with less than premium hands, Bobby Suer was somehow persuaded to lay down pocket jacks to Shamseddin on an eight-high flop while getting 2-1 to call, only to see Shamseddin gleefully turn up pocket sixes for the underpair.

Shortly thereafter, Suer would find himself doubling up Hilbert Shirey, having called a raise in the big blind with 7♦ 6♥ and calling the Old Schooler's all-in having flopped middle pair.

Shortly after that, Shamseddin outdid himself, three-betting 9-2 offsuit and then tanking forever when Chuck Kim's all-in shove over the top gave him 3-1 on his money (he eventually called; Kim had pocket eights and they held).

Upchucked!

Despite all of this, nobody managed to eliminate anyone else for 92 hands of final-table action, one short of the record set at the World Poker Open at the Gold Strike in Tunica in 2007.

The dam had to break sometime though, and it did in fitting fashion. Chuck Kim got all-in with A♣ K♠ against Shamseddin's A♦ 9♣ and looked in great shape to prolong six-handed play as the flop came A♥ 5♣ 4♦ and the turn the T♥. The river card, however, was the dagger 9♥ and Kim was outtie, busted in sixth place and taking $105,490 from the Table of Doom.

Kim's elimination seemed to set something off, because a few hands later Tyler Smith was headed to the cage. Smith, who'd played fairly solid, found himself racing with ace-king against Allen Carter, who'd also played fairly solid in the early going and who held queens. The board brought no funny business and Smith was off to collect the $134,500 he'd earned for his efforts.

That joke isn't funny anymore.

Then it was Hilbert Shirey's turn. Short-stacked, Shirey shipped in the small blind with J♠ T♠ and got a call from Suer, who held A♣ 8♦ in the big. The table's elder statesman flopped a gut-shot draw but couldn't complete the deal, instead hitting the bricks in fourth place and earning another $184,607 to add to the coffers.

With three people left the money started to get serious, with each survivor guaranteed at least $263,725 for his time. For Suer and Shamseddin, this endgame meant playing poker like pitching hand grenades, hurling all-ins at each other while Carter sat back and watched the shrapnel fly.

Old school.

Eventually, Carter would wade into the action himself, busting Shamseddin in a bizarre and remarkable hand that came as the perfect capstone to the maniac's evening.

After calling Shamseddin's $300,000 button raise from the big blind pre-flop, Carter checked on all three streets of a K♣ T♠ 5♦ T♣ A♦ board, calling a $400,000 wager on fourth street and getting his rival to bluff-shove all-in on fifth street holding naught but jack-high.

Carter, holding Q♣ T♦, snapped the trapdoors shut and busted Shamseddin, who stood on the WPT soundstage as though he hadn't just bluffed off his shot at a million dollars with nothing but air, before finally being ushered off to collect his third-place prize money.

California love!

That left nothing but a heads-up battle that was more like a clinic than a poker game. Carter, an online player and entrepreneur from Texas, came into the match with $5 million in chips to Bobby Suer's $3.5 million, but quickly had his opponent's stack dwindling down to the dregs.

Suer, a California-born radiologist who looked as though he should have drummed for Van Halen, seemed lost, uncertain of the relative stack sizes and without any sort of plan for the match, and Carter (who admitted after the fact that he'd been catching plenty of cards) could seemingly never lose a pot.

But the Californian wouldn't crumble, doubling twice to stave off elimination before settling down to give his chips away again.

President Carter.

Ultimately, though, Suer was only prolonging the inevitable, though it would take a suck-out on Carter's part to finally do him in. The final hand of the tournament saw Carter call Suer's $1.49 million all-in holding A♦ 4♥ to his rival's A♣ K♣ and watch a flop come J♣ 5♣ 3♠, giving Carter plenty of ways to lose and far fewer ways to win.

The 2♦ that fell on the turn, however, was one of the latter, and after the Texan faded the flush with the Q♦ on the river he'd won the tournament's $1 million first prize, as well as his first WPT title, two flashy bracelets and his first PokerListings.com interview. For his second-place finish, Suer takes home $501,082 as a consolation prize.

Congratulations to all finalists, to Johnny Grooms and the staff at the Beau Rivage and to anyone who stuck with the coverage all night. At least it was interesting, right?